Imam, assistant gunned down near New York mosque

A gunman shot and killed a New York imam and his
assistant near their mosque in the borough of
Queens during a brazen attack carried out in broad
daylight Saturday.
Police said the imam, identified as Maulama
Akonjee, 55, and his assistant, 64-year-old Thara
Uddin, were shot just before 2:00 pm (1800 GMT) in
the Ozone Park neighborhood.
The working class area, on the border between
Queens and Brooklyn, is home to many Muslim
families from Bangladesh.
Both men were taken to nearby Jamaica Hospital
with gunshot wounds and were pronounced dead
there.
The shooting comes amid a climate of growing
Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment as a series
of deadly attacks have unfolded in the United States
and abroad, some of which have been claimed by
the Islamic State group, and Republican presidential
contender Donald Trump's proposal to ban
Muslims from entering the US.
The two men were approached from behind by a
suspect, who witnesses saw fleeing the scene with a
gun, according to police. The street on which they
were killed is called Liberty Avenue.
Officers said the individual is still at large and the
investigation is ongoing.
US media reported that the men were shot after
leaving the Al-Furqan Jame Masjid mosque after
Saturday afternoon prayers, dressed in traditional
Muslim garb.
However, police said the motive is unknown and no
arrests have been made.
"There is nothing in the preliminary investigation to
indicate that they were targeted because of their
faith," police told journalists.
- Hate crime? -
But Sarah Sayeed of the New York mayor's office
insisted that "the NYPD is looking at all angles of
this crime, including the hate crime (angle)."
Kobir Chowdhury, who heads the nearby Masjid Al-
Aman mosque in Brooklyn, said: "Please, read my
lips. This is a hate crime, no matter which way you
look at it.
"It's hate against humanity, it's hate against
Muslims, these are Islamophobes who are causing
these kind of troubles."
During a vigil, the faithful prayed outside the
mosque, heads bent and their palms facing the sky.
"Imagine your father gunned down for no reason,
and then let that feeling, let that motivate you to
come out of your silence," Afaf Nasher, the director
of the New York chapter of the Council on
American-Islamic relations, said at a tense press
conference in front of the mosque.
"When we stay silent we allow crimes to continue to
occur," she said.
"So every single one of us shares in this
responsibility. And let's not forget the victims who
are essential to all of this."
US Representative Nydia Velazquez said in a tweet
that she was "horrified" by the shooting.
"All NYers must stand united in condemning acts
like these," she added.
The neighborhood's city council representative Eric
Ulrich tweeted that he stood "in strong solidarity
with all Muslim New Yorkers tonight as we mourn
the killings."

"When a religious leader is killed in broad daylight
on the streets of Queens, we must come together as
a community and demand justice!" he wrote.
As night fell, a few hundred people gathered near
the scene of the fatal shooting, many of them
yelling "we want justice."